Active Member

It isn't really WHAT they did to Initial D, but what they're doing to it. They're trying to make it main stream (and it isn't mainstream material, so that doesn't work out).

But what they acually did is mostly the errors in the Manga. There are a bunch of them. Like saying that a rotary engine is faster than a normal one, then gettig it right later -_-.

And another complaint people has is the sheer amount of bad punctuation in the Manga. They're hard to catch if you're not looking for them, but...

And as for the Anime:
HAVE YOU SEEN THE DUB??
Sorry about that, but it's (seriously) unwatchable. For me anyways. It's embarrasing. I know they give you the original (which has some minor subtitle censorship), but they're trying to make it mainstream. Let me tell you a story:
Everyday at lunch, I read Initial D. No one cared. One day, everyone starts bugging me about it. They supposedly saw a commertial for it, and rented it. God that was embarassing. They didn't even bother watching the original.

Disclaimer: I like the Manga, these are just some of the popular complaints. But the Anime stuff is my own opinion, and do not represent the Otaku.

An astronaut!

I'm curious, cuz I'm wondering why they're bothering with trying to make a show like this appeal to people who don't really dig the Japanes culture or anime.... cuz I haven't heard of a single person on Earth like that.

I've alot of friends. Some dig anime, some only dig football. And the latter who don't dig on anime aren't going to change their mind about buying a DVD or not because it's been Americanized. They aren't going to buy it in the first place!

So, I'm wondering are there people out there(and a large number?) who are clueless about anime, but can be persuaded if it's Americanized? I mean, does this even work with little kids?

I just read the reviews.

There were sex scenes in the original manga??? I didn't see any in the original series and I'm about 24 episodes in.

And I'm sorry to hear that even in the uncut "Classic" edition, that they snipped a few scenes here and there. I don't understand why they would do this tho. Who do they think is going to buy these DVD's? The only people I know of are people like us that they're pissing off.

How do they do such a stellar job with GTO, but for no good reason ruin another one of their titles?

The Real Big O

Simple question deserves a simple answer. Tokyopop is trying to cash in on The Fast and the Furious craze. So we are going to get all the lingo that goes with it. They may have left them out for the anime as usually the anime is tamer in comparison to the manga. The scene in question involvesa minor IIRC, so they changed a line so as not imply sex between a minor and an adult.
Initial d has 26 episodes.
Initial d Battle Stage is a movie of all the races with improved cg.
Second Stage has 13 episodes.
Initial D: Extra Stage is a 2 episode oav
Initial D: Third Stage is a 114 minute movie.

The Real Big O

The dub was totally changed and so far one line about the girl being in a swimsuit was changed from her being naked in front of Papa-san. I'll wait to see if any of this effects the later storyline before going on a rage.

Oh yeah Matt stay out of the way of rampaging anime fans when this thing happens, you may lose an arm or a leg. Not a pretty sight.

Space...not what it used to be

The "rage" probably has to do with Tokyopop's messing around with the series for the "tricked out" version. I know myself and alot of other Initial D fans are upset that Tokyopop doesn't seem to think that Japanese street racing culture is "edgy" enough of an American audience so they have to make it all "down with the street" and crud like that. Japanese street racing culture is vastly different from the culture of American street racing, and trying to force one upon the other in the name of making more money really misses the point of why alot of the more hadcore types but anime.

Granted there is the (almost)unmessed with version available, but it's still not quite the same. Kinda like "Cardcaptor"s and "Cardcaptors Sakura".

[/end rambling nonsense]

Y

Yoman0chaos

Guest

Another thing they did with the Tokyopop release that angered fans was completely remove the Eurobeat Soundtrack. The Music was actually thought out with the car scenes and it helps highten the fast tension, because Eurobeat generally is around 140-160BPM. It added a nice aspect to the show. However, Tokyopop didn't feel like paying the liscense fees, and replaced the entire Soundtrack with other music. I can see why Tokyopop wouldn't do that because of the money cost, but the Eurobeat soundtrack is a major element of the show and it just doesn't feel the same without it.

Only complaint I can think of is that there are only three episodes to a DVD, which just aren't enough. Four should be the minimum for a DVD to be with the money.

But I don't get what's up with fans of the series. The original cut is there... the tiny snip in sub dialogue for the first season means practically nothing. If it plays into next season, all they have to do is let it go through. No harm, cuz the casual viewer will just assume they missed the subtle reference.

But according to Tokyopop it's 6 full episodes. But seriously for the price it's not bad. You can pick it up online for around $15 which isn't bad at all for Anime. I think Bestbuy was selling it for $17.99.

I haven't decided if I'm going to get the rest of the discs or not yet. I love the series to death, but I wasn't very happy with the changes to the dub. I like dubs on occasion, but I couldn't watch more than 10 minutes of that crap. I got the feeling it was re-written by some old guy trying to be hip. Even using the excellent voice actors Steve Blum and Crispin Freeman couldn't save this awful dub. The changes to the video was weird and totally not necessary. Why exactly do I need to see the same scene cut up 4 times on the screen? Or have the colors reversed? Is that supposed to make up for the bad CG? "Now use a star swipe."

I don't even know where to begin on the music, most of it sounds like it was made by a single DJ in his basement and is awful. They play the music at the worst possible times and sometimes you couldn't even hear the voice actors because the music was playing. They also keep reusing the same crappy opening them over and over. Not to mention that new ending theme actually gave me a headache and I had to hold my self back from breaking the DVD in half.

But I don't get what's up with fans of the series. The original cut is there... the tiny snip in sub dialogue for the first season means practically nothing. If it plays into next season, all they have to do is let it go through. No harm, cuz the casual viewer will just assume they missed the subtle reference.

My guess is people are angry because Tokyopop still edited the "classic" version after they promised that they wouldn’t do anything to it. I remember recently reading an email from Tokyopop that said that when this comes into play later on in the series they will leave it unedited. But only time will tell...

Initial D is the only anime I can actually get my friends to watch because they are big time into cars. Even though they hated the animation, character designs, and CG. They loved it for the accuracy of the cars and the driving techniques. I still can't figure out why Hollywood directors don't take a note from that page and try to make street racing films more accurate. I would love to see a live action movie like the original Initial D.

Active Member

I honestly don't know why everyone is so upset about the English version of Initial D.

In case you haven't noticed, whether you're talking about Initial D, Dragon Ball Z, Love Hina, or even Trigun, the English versions of anime series ALWAYS contain "mainstreaming" to some extent or another. No matter what series you point out, the English version ALWAYS adds American pop culture references or phrases and tones things down to some extent, and it can NEVER be fully true to the original version.

The English versions aren't meant for the fans! Sure, distributors like ADV and Bandai try to make sure they stay fairly close to the original and not pull a CardCaptors with their dubs because they have repsect for the original version... but, in the end, all dubs contain "mainstreaming" to some extent or another, and no dub is meant for the otaku! Why the heck else would they include the subtitled version?

Clearly and simply put, the English version of ANY anime is meant to appeal to the casual anime viewer who isn't concerned with the original version, and the subtitled Japanese version is meant for the person who is concerned with things being authentic to the original version - that is, it's meant for the otaku.

Otaku's should watch the Japanese version, the casual "Dragon Ball Z" type watchers should watch the English version. That's the way it is with any other series, why is this different?

Active Member

I'll take one final jab at an explaination:
We fans of the series who don't like the dub are gonna complain. Period. Why does anyone complain about the dub when they could very easily import a DVD relitivly cheaply?

Because we're mad that they did that. Even if we don't have to watch it, they still messed it up. That's why we don't watch it.

So don't question the angry Otaku. We may seem illogical to you, but not to ourselves.

Yes, the music in the "classic" version is the same exact music on the Japanese version. The music doesn't make the show but it helps a lot. The music is very kick ass to say the least, in my opinion anyways.

What if I wanna watch the show in English without all of the funky effects and crappy "new" music? then what? I'm screwed I guess.

Well there are three settings in the setup: Video, Subtitles, and Language. So it looks like you can set the video to classic, and the language to english. You won't have the funky effects, but you will have the new music because it's part of the dub. I haven't actually tried this yet though but it seems like you could.